It was to a wife and daughters such as these that he was returning, with
the benevolent wish of interesting them for the guilty Adeline.
'So, Dr Norberry, you are come back at last!' was his first salutation,
'and what does the creature say for herself?'
'The creature!--Your fellow-creature, my dear, says very little--grief
is not wordy.'
'Grief!--So then she is unhappy, is she?' cries Miss Norberry; 'I am
monstrous glad of it.'
The doctor started; and an oath nearly escaped his lips. He did say,
'Why, zounds, Jane!'--but then he added, in a softer tone, 'Why do you
rejoice in a poor girl's affliction?'
'Because I think it is for the good of her soul.'
'Good girl!' replied the father:--'Jane, (seizing her hand,) may your
soul never need such a medicine!'
'It never will,' said her mother proudly: 'she has been differently
brought up.'
'She has been well brought up, you might have added,' observed the
doctor, 'had modesty permitted it. Mrs Mowbray, poor woman, had good
intentions; but she was too flighty. Had Adeline, my children, had such
a mother as yours, she would have been like you.'
'But not half so handsome,' interrupted the mother in a low voice.
'But as our faults and our virtues, my dear, depend so much on the care
and instruction of others, we should look with pity, as well as aversion
on the faults of those less fortunate in instructors than we have been.'
'Certainly;--very true,' said Mrs Norberry, flattered and affected by
this compliment from her husband: 'but you know, James Norberry,' laying
her hand on his, 'I always told you you overrated Mrs Mowbray; and that
she was but a dawdle after all.'
'You always did, my good woman,' replied he, raising her hand to his
lips.
'But you men think yourselves much wiser than we are!'
'We do so,' replied the doctor.
The tone was equivocal--Mrs Norberry felt it to be so, and looked up
in his face.--The doctor understood the look: it was one of doubt and
inquiry; and, as it was his interest to sooth her in order to carry his
point, he exclaimed, 'We men are, indeed, too apt to pride ourselves in
our supposed superior wisdom: but I, you will own, my dear, have always
done your sex justice; and you in particular.'
'You have been a good husband indeed, James Norberry,' replied his wife
in a faltering voice; 'and I believe you to be, to every one, a just and
honourable man.'
'And I dare say, dame, I do no more than justice to you, when I think
you will approve and further a plan for Adeline Mowbray's good, which I
am going to propose to you.'
Mrs Norberry withdrew her hand; but returning it again:--'To be sure,
my dear,' she cried. 'Any thing you wish; that is, if I see right to--'
'I will explain myself,' continued the doctor gently.
'I have promised this poor girl to endeavour to bring about a
reconciliation between her and her mother; but though Adeline wishes
to receive her pardon on any terms, and even, if it be required, to
renounce her lover, I fear Mrs Mowbray is too much incensed against her,
to see or forgive her.'
'Hard-hearted woman!' cried Mrs Norberry.
'Cruel, indeed!' cried her daughters.
'But a mother ought to be severe, very severe, on such occasions, young
ladies,' hastily added Mrs Norberry: 'but go on, my dear.'
'Now it is but too probable,' continued the doctor, 'that Glenmurray
will not live long, and then this young creature will be left to
struggle unprotected with the difficulties of her situation; and who
knows but that she may, from poverty, and the want of a protector, be
tempted to continue in the paths of vice?'
'Well, Dr Norberry, and what then?--Who or what is to prevent it?--You
know we have three children to provide for; and I am a young woman as
yet.'
'True, Hannah,' giving her a kiss, 'and a very pretty woman too.'
'Well, my dear love, anything we can do with prudence I am ready to do;
I can say no more.'
'You have said enough,' cried the doctor exultingly; 'then hear my plan:
Adeline shall, in the event of Glenmurray's death, which though not
certain seems likely--to be sure, I did not inquire into the nature of
his nocturnal perspirations, his expectoration, and so forth--'
'Dear papa, you are so professional!' affectedly exclaimed his youngest
daughter.
'Well, child, I have done; and to return to my subject--if Glenmurray
lives or dies, I think it advisable that Adeline should go into
retirement to lie-in. And where can she be better than in my little
cottage now empty, within a four-miles ride of our house? If she wants
protection, I can protect her; and if she wants money before her mother
forgives her, you can give it to her.'
'Indeed, papa,' cried both the girls, 'we shall not grudge it.'
The doctor started from his chair, and embraced his daughters with joy
mixed with wonder; for he knew they had always disliked Adeline.--True;
but then, she was prosperous, and their superior. Little minds love to
bestow protection; and it was easy to be generous to the fallen Adeline
Mowbray: had her happiness continued, so would their hatred.
'Then it is a settled point, is it not dame?' asked the doctor, chucking
his wife under the chin; when, to his great surprise and consternation,
she threw his hand indignantly from her, and vociferated, 'She shall
never live within a ride of our house, I can assure you, Dr Norberry.'
The doctor was petrified into silence, and the girls could only
articulate 'La! mamma?' But what could produce this sudden and violent
change? Nothing but a simple and natural operation of the human mind.
Though a very kind husband, and an indulgent father, Dr Norberry was
suspected, though unjustly, of being a very gallant man: and some of Mrs
Norberry's good-natured friends had occasionally hinted to her their
sorrow at hearing such and such reports; reports which were indeed
destitute of foundation; but which served to excite suspicions in the
mind of the tenacious Mrs Norberry. And what more likely to re-awaken
them than the young and frail Adeline Mowbray living in a cottage of her
husband's, protected, supported, and visited by him! The moment this
idea occurred, its influence was unconquerable; and with a voice and
manner of determined hostility she made known her resolves in
consequence of it.
After a pause of dismay and astonishment, the doctor cried, 'Dame, what
have you gotten in your head? What, all on a sudden, has had such an
ugly effect on you?'
'Second thoughts are best, doctor; and I now feel that it would be
highly improper for you, with daughters grown up, to receive with such
marked kindness a single young woman at a cottage of yours, who is going
to lie-in.'
'But, my dear, it is a different case, when I do it to keep her out of
the way of further harm.'
'That is more than I know, Dr Norberry,' replied the wife bridling, and
fanning herself.
'Whew!' whistled the doctor; and then addressing his daughters, 'Girls,
you had better go to bed; it grows late.'
The young ladies obeyed; but first hung round their mother's neck, as
they bade her good night, and hoped she would not be so cruel to the
poor deluded Adeline.
Mrs Norberry angrily shook them off, with a peevish--'Get along, girls.'
The doctor cordially kissed, and bade God bless them; while the door
closed and left the loving couple alone.
What passed, it were tedious to repeat: suffice that after a long
altercation, continued even after they were retired to rest, the doctor
found his wife, on this subject, incapable of listening to reason, and
that, as a finishing stroke, she exclaimed, 'It does not signify talking,
Dr Norberry, while I have my senses, and can see into a mill-stone a
little, the hussey shall never come near us.'
The doctor sighed deeply; turned himself round, not to sleep but to
think, and rose the next morning to go in search of Mrs Mowbray,
dreading the interview which he was afterwards to have with Adeline; for
he did not expect to succeed in his application to her mother, and he
could not now soften his intelligence with a 'but,' as he intended.
'True,' he meant to have said to her, 'your mother will not receive you;
but if you ever want a home or a place of retirement, I have a cottage,
and so forth.'
'Pshaw!' cried the doctor to himself, as these thoughts came across him
on the road, and made him hastily let down the front window of the
post-chaise for air.
'Did your honour speak?' cries the post-boy.
'Not I. But can't you drive faster and be hanged to you?'
The boy whipped his horses.--The doctor then found that it was up
hill--down went the glass again:--'Hold, you brute, why do you not see
it is up hill?' For find fault he must; and with his wife he could not,
or dared not, even in fancy.
'Dear me! Why, your honour bade me put it on.'
'Devilishly obedient,' muttered the doctor: 'I wish every one was like
you in that respect.'--And in a state of mind not the pleasantest
possible the doctor drove into town, and to the hotel where Mrs Mowbray
was to be found.
Dr Norberry was certainly now not in a humour to sooth any woman whom he
thought in the wrong, except his wife; and, whether from carelessness or
design, he did not, unfortunately for Adeline, manage the self-love of
her unhappy mother.
He found Mrs Mowbray with her heart shut up, not softened by sorrow.
The hands once stretched forth with kindness to welcome him, were
now stiffly laid one upon the other; and 'How are you, sir?' coldly
articulated, was followed by as cold a 'Pray sit down.'
'Why, how ill you look!' exclaimed the doctor.
'I attend more to my feelings than my looks,' with a deep sigh, answered
Mrs Mowbray.
'Your feelings are as bad as your looks, I dare say.'
'They are worse, sir,' said Mrs Mowbray piqued.
'There was no need of that,' replied the doctor: 'but I am come to
point out to you one way of getting rid of some of your unpleasant
feelings:--see, and forgive your daughter.'
Mrs Mowbray started, changed colour, and exclaimed with quickness, 'Is
she in England?' but added instantly, 'I have no daughter:--she, who was
my child, is my most inveterate foe; she has involved me in disgrace and
misery.'
'With a little of your own help she has,' replied the doctor. 'Come,
come, my old friend, you have both of you something to forget and
forgive; and the sooner you set about it the better. Now do write, and
tell Adeline, who is by this time in London, that you forgive her.'
'Never:--after having promised me not to hold converse with that villain
without my consent? Had I no other cause of complaint against her;--had
she not by her coquettish arts seduced the affections of the man I
loved:--never, never would I forgive her having violated the sacred
promise which she gave me.'
'A promise,' interrupted the doctor, 'which she would never have
violated, had not you first violated that sacred compact which you
entered into at her birth.'
'What mean you, sir?'
'I mean, that though a parent does not, at a child's birth, solemnly
make a vow to do all in his or her power to promote the happiness of
that child,--still, as he has given it birth, he has tacitly bound
himself to make it happy. This tacit agreement you broke, when at the
age of forty, you, regardless of your daughter's welfare, played the
fool and married a pennyless profligate, merely because he had a fine
person and a handsome leg.'
Mrs Mowbray was too angry and too agitated to interrupt him, and he went
on:
'Well, what was the consequence? The young fellow very naturally
preferred the daughter to the mother; and, as he could not have her by
fair, was resolved to have her by foul means; and so he--'
'I beg, Dr Norberry,' interrupted Mrs Mowbray in a faint voice, 'that
you would spare the disgusting recital.'
'Well, well, I will. Now do consider the dilemma your child was in: she
must either elope, or by her presence keep alive a criminal passion in
her father-in-law, which you sooner or later must discover; and be
besides exposed to fresh insults.--Well, Glenmurray by chance happened
to be on the spot just as she escaped from that villanous fellow's
clutches, and--'
'He is dead, Dr Norberry,' interrupted Mrs Mowbray; 'and you know the
old adage, "Do not speak ill of the dead."'
'And a very silly adage it is. I had rather speak ill of the dead than
the living, for my part: but let me go on.--Well, love taking the name
and habit of prudence and filial piety, (for she thought she consulted
your happiness, and not her own,) bade her fly to and with her lover;
and now there she is, owing to the pretty books which you let her read,
living with him as his mistress, and glorying in it, as if it was a
notable praiseworthy action.'
'And you would have me forgive her?'
'Certainly: a fault which both your precepts and conduct occasioned. Not
but what the girl has been wrong, terribly wrong:--no one ought to do
evil that good may come. You had forbidden her to have any intercourse
with Glenmurray; and she therefore knew that disobeying you would make
you unhappy--that was a certainty. That fellow's persevering in his
attempts, after the fine rebuff which she had given him, was an
uncertainty; and she ought to have run the risk of it, and not committed
a positive fault to avoid a possible evil. But then hers was a fault
which she could not have committed had not you married that--but I
forbear. And as to her not being married to Glenmurray, that is no
fault of his; and with your consent, he will marry your daughter
to-morrow morning. That ever so good, cleanly-hearted a youth should
have poked his nose into the filthy mess of eccentric philosophy!'
'Have you done, doctor?' cried Mrs Mowbray haughtily: 'have you said all
that Miss Mowbray and you have invented to insult me?'
'Your child send me to insult you!--She!--Adeline!--Why, the poor soul
came broken-hearted and post haste from France, when she heard of your
misfortunes, to offer her services to console you.'
'She console me?--she, the first occasion of them?--But for her, I might
still have indulged the charming delusion, even if it were delusion,
that love of me, not of my wealth, induced the man I doted upon to
commit a crime to gain possession of me.'
'Why!' hastily interrupted the doctor, 'everyone saw that he loved her
long before he married you.'
The storm, long gathering, now burst forth; and rising, with the tears,
high colour, and vehement voice of unbridled passion, Mrs Mowbray
exclaimed, raising her arm and clenching her fist as she spoke, 'And it
is being the object of that cruel preference, which I never, never will
forgive her!'
The doctor, after ejaculating 'Whew!' as much as to say 'The murder is
out,' instantly took his hat and departed, convinced his labour was
vain. 'There,' muttered he as he went down stairs, 'two instances in one
day! Ah, ah,--that jealousy is the devil.' He then slowly walked to the
hotel, where he expected to find Adeline and Glenmurray.
They had arrived about two hours before; and Adeline in a frame of mind
but ill fitted to bear the disappointment which awaited her. For, with
the sanguine expectations natural to her age, she had been castle-building
as usual; and their journey to London had been rendered a very short
one, by the delightful plans, for the future, which she had been forming
and imparting to Glenmurray.
'When I consider,' said she, 'the love which my mother has always shown
for me, I cannot think it possible that she can persist in renouncing
me; and however her respect for the prejudices of the world, a world
which she intended to live in at the time of her unfortunate connexion,
might make her angry at my acting in defiance of its laws,--now that she
herself, from a sense of injury and disgrace, is about to retire from
it, she will no longer have a motive to act contrary to the dictates of
reason herself, or to wish me to do so.'
'But your ideas of reason and hers may be so different--'
'No. Our practice may be different, but our theory is the same, and I
have no doubt but that my mother will now forgive and receive us; and
that, living in a romantic solitude, being the whole world to each
other, our days will glide away in uninterrupted felicity.'
'And how shall we employ ourselves?' said Glenmurray smiling.
'You shall continue to write for the instruction of your fellow-creatures;
while my mother and I shall be employed in endeavouring to improve the
situation of the poor around us, and perhaps in educating our children.'
Adeline, when animated by any prospect of happiness, was irresistible:
she was really Hope herself, as described by Collins--
'But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure!'
and Glenmurray, as he listened to her, forgot his illness; forgot every
thing, but what Adeline chose to imagine. The place of their retreat was
fixed upon. It was to be a little village near Falmouth, the scene of
their first happiness. The garden was laid out; Mrs Mowbray's library
planned; and so completely were they lost in their charming prospects
for the future, that every turnpike-man had to wait a longer time than
he was accustomed to for his money; and the postillion had driven into
London in the way to the hotel, before Adeline recollected that she was,
for the first time, in a city which she had long wished most ardently to
see.
They had scarcely taken up their abode at the hotel recommended to them
by Dr Norberry, when he knocked at the door. Adeline from the window had
seen him coming; and sure as she thought herself to be of her mother's
forgiveness, she turned sick and faint when the decisive moment was at
hand; and, hurrying out of the room, she begged Glenmurray to receive
the doctor, and apologize for her absence.
Glenmurray awaited him with a beating heart. He listened to his step
on the stairs: it was slow and heavy; unlike that of a benevolent man
coming to communicate good news. Glenmurray began immediately to tremble
for the peace of Adeline; and, hastily pouring out a glass of wine, was
on the point of drinking it when Dr Norberry entered.
'Give me a glass,' cried he: 'I want one, I am sure, to recruit my
spirits.' Glenmurray in silence complied with his desire. 'Come, I'll
give you a toast,' cried the doctor: 'Here is--'
At this moment Adeline entered. She had heard the doctor's last words,
and she thought he was going to drink to the reconciliation of her
mother and herself; and hastily opening the door she came to receive
the good news which awaited her. But, at sight of her, the toast died
unfinished on her old friend's lips; he swallowed down the wine in
silence, and then taking her hand led her to the sofa.
Adeline's heart began to die within her; and before the doctor, after
having taken a pinch of snuff and blowed his nose full three times, was
prepared to speak, she was convinced that she had nothing but unwelcome
intelligence to receive; and she awaited in trembling expectation an
answer to a 'Well, sir,' from Glenmurray, spoken in a tone of fearful
emotion.
'No, it is not well, sir,' replied the doctor.
'You have seen my mother?' said Adeline, catching hold of the arm of the
sofa for support: and in an instant Glenmurray was by her side.
'I have seen Mrs Mowbray, but not your mother: for I have seen a woman
dead to every graceful impulse of maternal affection, and alive only to
a selfish sense of rivalship and hatred. My poor child! God forgive the
deluded woman! But I declare she detests you!'
'Detests me?' exclaimed Adeline.
'Yes; she swears that she can never forgive the preference which that
vile fellow gave you, and I am convinced that she will keep her word;'
and here the doctor, turning round, saw Adeline lying immoveable in
Glenmurray's arms. But she did not long remain so, and with a frantic
scream kept repeating the words 'She detests me!' till unable to contend
any longer with the acuteness of her feelings, she sunk, sobbing
convulsively, exhausted on the bed to which they carried her.
'My good friend, my only friend,' cried Glenmurray, 'what is to be done?
Will she scream again, think you, in that most dreadful and unheard-of
manner? For, if she does, I must run out of the house.'
'What, then, she never treated you in this pretty way before, heh?'
'Never, never. Her self-command has always been exemplary.'
'Indeed?--Lucky fellow! My wife and daughters often scream just as loud,
on very trifling occasions: but that scream went to my heart; for I well
know how to distinguish between the shriek of agony and that of passion.'
When Adeline recovered, she ardently conjured Dr Norberry to procure
her an interview with her mother; contending that it was absolutely
impossible to suppose, that the sight of a child so long and tenderly
loved should not renew a little of her now dormant affection.
'But you were her rival, as well as her child; remember that. However,
you look so ill, that now, if ever, she will forgive you, I think:
therefore I will go back to Mrs Mowbray; and while I am there do you
come, ask for me, and follow the servant into the room.'
'I will,' replied Adeline: and leaning on the arm of her lover, she
slowly followed the doctor to her mother's hotel.